


Secrets

by Joking611



Series: Cari'ssi'mi Drabbles [16]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/F, Guilt, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 03:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11751474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joking611/pseuds/Joking611
Summary: Liara receives a visitor from the Normandy





	Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> Challenge Yourself: A Month Of Fanfiction 2017
> 
> Monday 8/7's prompt: The Bad Thing No One Talks About

“Dr. T’Soni, there is a human here to see you.”

Nyxeris’ announcement was more for her visitor’s benefit than her's. Liara had the reception area and stairway to her office under observation. While this was not unexpected given the nature of her business, it did tend to disconcert her clients when they were reminded of it.

Liara continued to watch reception, and the human currently talking to her assistant. She’d both anticipated and dreaded this moment. She’d known it was coming from the moment that the Normandy had made port at Nos Astra. With two years to plan, you think she’d have been better prepared.

She wiped the unease from her face, and allowed her features to settle into the unemotional mask that had become her norm.

“Nyxeris, please send the visitor in.” She sat down at her desk, back straight, eyes focused on her terminal, making every effort to project a disinterested demeanor.

Her office doors slid apart. She could make out her guests’ features in the reflection of her desk. The anxious hesitancy, the reluctance to enter. The goddess-damned Cerberus uniform that brought back so many memories, all of them bad. Memories of Omega, Feron, and the Shadow Broker. Memories of the love of her life reduced to crushed bone and charred flesh. She allowed none of this to show outwardly as she deliberately made effort to offer neither hospitality nor hostility.

She failed.

Eyes hooded, lips just shy of a sneer, she regarded her visitor with barely restrained contempt.

“Mr. Moreau. I am astounded that you had the courage to contact me at all, let alone come to my office.”

The man shuffled a few steps forward, emotion raw on his face. “Liara,” he began, then stopped as if re-evaluating the reception he’d received.

“Dr. T’Soni,” he began again. “I need to talk to you. I just had to say…”

She waved him to silence as she interrupted. “I am not interested in your apology, Mr. Moreau. Your actions caused Shepard’s death. You know it, I know it. This is not something that I am interested in discussing at all, and certainly not in discussing with you.”

Joker appeared to find some backbone at that, as he pulled himself as straight as he was able. “Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I’ve spent the last two years knowing that? That I spend every damn day knowing what I did?”

“Good”, she whispered too low for him to hear, as her determination began to falter. She raised her voice. “I fail to see how this concerns me, how _you_ concern me.”

“Bullshit Liara,” Joker left the false formality behind. “I know what you did.”

She steepled her fingers. “And I know what you did,” she deflected. “And because of what you did, I felt my bondmate die.”

“And yet here I am.”

“Here you are” she agreed. “And as I have nothing additional to discuss with you, please leave my office.”

“Here I am,” he reiterated, “Because of you. I want to know why.”

“I fail to understand,” she again waved him to silence, “nor am I interested in having you explain it to me. I repeat, please leave.”

“No!” Practically a yell. “I disobeyed a direct order from a superior officer. That lead to the death of my CO. Do you know that they do to Alliance officers whose insubordination gets their CO killed?”

“Something appropriate to the hierarchal nature of human organizations, I’m sure,” she brushed off his question. “Nothing I have any interest…”

Joker cut her off. “I’ll tell you what they don’t do. They don’t let them avoid court-martial. They don’t quietly discharge them. They don’t let them walk out of the JAG office after making a statement without so much as a by-your-leave. They don’t see them safely into the arms of a goddamn terrorist organization.” He pointed directly at her face, “ _You_ did that. If it were up to Anderson they never would have found my body, but I spent the last two years flying The Illusive Man to fundraisers while Shepard was busy getting the best makeover I’ve ever heard of.” He took a breath. “WHY?”

“It is what Shepard would have wanted.”

Joker flinched as if struck. “But… you despise me. You didn’t speak to me at the memorial.  You never returned my calls.”

“I have no desire to revisit that event.”

“I deserved to be punished.” His eyes were haunted. “Don’t you think that’s what _I_ wanted?"

 _That_ was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it? Liara had read the transcripts, seen the flight recorder data, observed Joker’s debriefing and his psychological evaluation. Joker should never have been piloting the Normandy. Not after losing Ashley. Not after spending two months with the board of inspection instead of taking the R &R he desperately needed after the Saren mission.

It wasn’t his fault.

But she hadn’t been able to forgive him.

Joker took her silence for dismissal. He didn’t have the heart to maintain a one-sided argument.

Before her office door closed, he looked back at the motionless asari. “She’s back. That has to count for something. Doesn't it?”

When Liara didn’t respond, Joker took the last step through the entry, allowing the door to close behind him.

 _‘Goddess,’_ she thought.

After a moment’s consideration, she opened a connection to Nyxeris.

“Nyxeris, please assist Mr. Moreau with navigating the stairs, and see that he returns safely to the Normandy.” 

She still hadn’t forgiven him, she told herself.

**Author's Note:**

> For those just finding this for the first time, "Secrets" ties into Chapter 26 of "Fragments".


End file.
